Premium-rate calls watchdog to join battle against pirates • The Register

The article discusses the ways that people in the UK and EU pay for access to sites that host infringing content. I'm assuming (yeah, I know) that they are mainly talking about cyber-locker sites which provide faster, unrestricted access to paid users. (For uploaders, a paid account means additional space, files don't get deleted after a time or for non-use, and they gain "credits" if the files are popular. For downloaders, a paid account provides maximum speed downloads and multiple parallel download ability etc.)

Until recently, the usual way to pay for such accounts has been via credit card or Paypal. These methods are increasingly being blocked, so sites are turning to PRS (Premium Rate (phone) Service), where you call a number and the account fee is added to your phone bill. The article shows that "the authorities" are on to this and are also blocking that method. Make it uneconomic to run a cyberlocker and it will close...

Although I believe that cyberlockers are the main target, the measures would apply equally to sites which offer to sell downloads of specific tracks when they don't have a license to the content. There used to be a few (mainly Russian) sites doing this, although I haven't seen any recently.

I'm waiting for "the authorities" to turn their attentions to the suppliers of other infringing goods such as fake drugs and watches. Cut off the payment methods for the suppliers, they shut down and don't need advertising, spammers don't get paid. I believe efforts are being made to do something similar in the US, but focussed on blocking access to the infringing sites rather than cutting off their money supply.

It's all progress.

As each of these methods is tried, the conversation changes from it being acceptable to being unacceptable, and clearly illegal.

We're finally moving beyond the "it's my right", "sharing is not stealing" , etc, etc, arguments... the pro-piracy talking points are being dismantled for being as the transparent rationalization that it's always been.

Social Awareness about the issue is gaining much needed momentum as is the ability to make much needed legislative changes.

It's all positive to me.

Once credit and other monitary exchange (such as what you linked Don) is cut off... to be sure, there's other methods. Since 2009, there's been something called a "BitCoin", a virtual money system not tied to any Nation... it's getting quite valuable actually.

Time.com/Techland--BitCoin

Blog @ Time magazine--BitCoin

It's primarily an encrypted currency that criminals and organized crime syndicates use... (plus some speculators)

I read a few months ago that after it looked like ISP's would be compelled by the UK government to collect data on pirates using broadband to download content illegally, a lot of the pirates switched to mobile phones for their downloading.
Harder to trace, more mobile and presumably you can use Wi-Fi hotspots etc.....

I remember the article, but I can't find it at the moment. I did find this, relevant to this thread:

WikiLeaks Shows the Way | The Cynical Musician

Google recently had to pay a half-billion dollar fine for facilitating the sale of illicit pharmaceuticals.

"Don't be evil", my arse!

About time:

Justice Department launches public education campaign to fight copyright theft - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

... but you have to wonder:
Bought? How common are unauthorised DVD copies for sale in the USA?

[QUOTE Bought? How common are unauthorised DVD copies for sale in the USA? [/QUOTE]

Several days a month I go to a certain supply house in a NYC suburb to get material for my electrical business. At least once a week, a young Asian girl ( obviously not an electrician ) comes in with a large back-pack stuffed with bootlegged and counterfeit CDs, DVDs, etc. The place literally shuts down while the employees, and many customers, rummage through the pile she dumps onto the counter. I simply back off into a corner until the feeding frenzy is over. Guys would say to me: "hey man, don't you want in on some good deals?" and I would answer: "no man, I don't feel like stealing anything today..." They would all look at me with a sort of glazed-over blank stare, and then start laughing. One day I followed her outside. There was a police car about a block away and I ran up to it and told the cops what she had in her back-pack. They just looked at me with the same glazed-over blank stare: "sir, we didn't get any calls about any burglaries or robberies - have a nice day". Huh???

Thanks.
We get a lot of Asian students here. There's a recycling centre a few miles away, and when the students go home at the end of their courses they often dump surplus stuff there. (Recycling is free, landfill costs.) Most of the DVDs and VCDs are obviously counterfeit - plastic envelopes instead of cases, copied cover slicks, poor quality printing on the disc. They're usually SE Asian market movies, but one day I found Titanic on VCD and it was obviously from a camcorder in a theatre.

Recent survey shows that the vast majority of respondents support protecting IP online:

The American Consumer Institute

Quote:

Ultraviolet becoming visible:

UltraViolet: Hollywood's giant digital gamble is here • The Register

I'm on record as saying I'd love to see such a scheme for music - buy a "license to listen" for a given work / release and be able to listen to it / obtain a copy any time, any where, from any source. I realise it's not possible to implement it without some way of preventing unlicensed people from obtaining copies, though.

Don, I think Disney has had their system out for a while now, that being the BluRay/DVD/Online playback license-

I think the Ultraviolet setup, where there is the assurance of being device independent is far more compelling though.....